Brain Teasers

Amazing!!!

Jim Downey

This will likely come as news to you all, I'm sure:

Believers’ Inferences About God’s Beliefs are Egocentric

Religious people tend to use their own beliefs as a guide in thinking about what God believes, but are less constrained when reasoning about other people’s beliefs, according to new study published in the Nov. 30 early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Nicholas Epley, professor of behavioral science at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, led the research, which included a series of survey and neuroimaging studies to examine the extent to which people’s own beliefs guide their predictions about God’s beliefs. The findings of Epley and his co-authors at Australia’s Monash University and UChicago extend existing work in psychology showing that people are often egocentric when they infer other people’s beliefs.

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OK, I never really had a 'moment of enlightenment', when it came to religion. I grew up in the Catholic church, but somewhere around the time of puberty I started thinking about what they told me to believe and it just didn't really make any sense. That grew into a questioning of all kinds of religious nonsense over time, rejecting all of it and trying to be rational and realistic about the world. For me, it was just a process, not an event.

So I must admit to being somewhat interested to see what it is that causes some people to just break away from their religion - what is the "final straw", so to speak. Like this one:

'Crash' Director Paul Haggis Ditches Scientology

Over the past few days, a remarkable letter was published in four parts at the blog of Marty Rathbun, a former high-level Scientology official who has left the church and now criticizes Scientology's leader, David Miscavige.

* * *

Colorado sheriff: Runaway balloon saga was hoax

FORT COLLINS, Colo. – The parents who set off a worldwide drama by reporting their 6-year-old son was inside a flying saucer-like helium balloon hurtling over Colorado concocted the stunt to market themselves for a television show, a sheriff said Sunday.

* * *

Alderden said the parents Richard and Mayumi Heene "put on a very good show for us, and we bought it."

The sheriff said no charges had been filed yet, and the parents weren't under arrest. He said he expected to recommend charges of conspiracy, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, making a false report to authorities and attempting to influence a public servant.

Now who is the slightest bit surprised by this? I mean, seriously? That it completely captivated the media for most of Friday doesn't change the fact that the whole thing smelled from the very start.

Jim Downey

I think Bloomberg's been had. In a profile piece about Ted Turner, there's these passages:

“If you were around at the time, I gave everybody a hundred thousand dollars if they came up with anything,” Turner said. “I just couldn’t hold onto it. I wanted to keep it moving. I get a dollar, I give it to you, you spend it, somebody else gets it. You know, pass it around. You know, it’s kind of like a joint -- you just pass it around, light it up, you know, share with your friends.”

The former media mogul’s Turner Enterprises owns about 2 million acres in 12 U.S. states and Argentina. More than 50,000 bison roam on parts of his land, according to the company. Some of those bison wind up in burgers and other dishes at Ted’s Montana Grill, a restaurant chain he co-founded in 2002. Ted’s has more than 50 outlets, according to its Web site.

Turner said he has learned to live with less, yet he still bemoans the decline in his net worth.

Wow:

Liberal bias has become the single biggest distortion in modern Bible translations. There are three sources of errors in conveying biblical meaning:

* lack of precision in the original language, such as terms underdeveloped to convey new concepts of Christianity
* lack of precision in modern language
* translation bias in converting the original language to the modern one.

Of these three sources of errors, the last introduces the largest error, and the biggest component of that error is liberal bias. Large reductions in this error can be attained simply by retranslating the KJV into modern English.[1]

As of 2009, there is no fully conservative translation of the Bible which satisfies the following ten guidelines:[2]

What an amazing project. Because the bible isn't already enough of a fairy tale, these guys feel the need to rephrase it in a manner more suited to their politics. Howso? Well, it's right there on the site, but let me point to just one of the "ten guidelines":

Another item from my recent trip to Pittsburgh . . .

We're happily driving across Illinois on I-70, making good time. It's been . . . well, decades . . . since I had driven through Effingham, and I wasn't in the slightest prepared for what I saw when I crested a particular hill. This:

Yeah, that's a real picture. See the size of the itty-bitty people at the base of the thing? From their website, the thing is said to be 198 feet tall.

It looms there, looking very much like some kind of alien construction, all shiny* and sharp edges. Surreal. There are very few instances when I viscerally feel my lack of religious belief, but this certainly was one of them. I almost drove off the road looking at that bizarre thing.

Jim Downey

*No, not that kind of shiny, silly!

Hey, remember the story of the nice Christian teacher who liked to impress the kiddies with the Power of the Lord by branding them with crosses?

Well, gee, guess what - the school district that used to employ him had to settle with one of the branded students:

District Settles With Student Who Accused Freshwater

MOUNT VERNON, Ohio—A Central Ohio school board has approved a $121,000 settlement with the family of a student who said his teacher burned the image of a cross on his arm.

School board members in Mount Vernon agreed Wednesday night to resolve a federal lawsuit by paying $5,500 to the boy and his family and $115,500 to their lawyers.

The family still has a similar suit pending against the eighth-grade teacher, John Freshwater.

So, we now know the cost: $121,000. Well, that and a small thing called the Separation of Church & State.

Oh, and just for extra fun: guess who else is suing the district? Yep:

Following up to this post, a news item:

Pilot pleaded to evacuate stranded passengers

MINNEAPOLIS – Continental Express Flight 2816 smelled like diapers. It had no food and a full toilet. Its 47 passengers had been stranded on a tarmac in southern Minnesota since after midnight.

"They are getting really upset — you know, with the plane," the captain told her dispatcher just before 3 a.m. on Aug. 8.

Recordings released Friday of conversations among the captain, dispatcher and staff for another airline at the Rochester, Minn., airport expose a breakdown that kept the plane sitting on the tarmac for almost six hours — for no clear reason — and triggered a Department of Transportation investigation.

I hadn't heard that the DoT was involved. Good for them. Anyway, here's some more from the news article:

. . . why when I travel to Pittsburgh in a month, I'm willing to drive the 12 hours rather than fly:

47 trapped on 'nightmare' flight to the Twin Cities

Security and rules kept passengers confined all night in a small plane at Rochester due to thunderstorms.

When Link Christin boarded a Continental Airlines flight from Houston to the Twin Cities on Friday night, he expected to be on the ground in about three hours and ready for a comfy bed.

Instead, he was among 47 passengers who spent the night trapped inside a small airplane, parked at the Rochester airport, complete with crying babies and the aroma of over-used toilets.

* * *

The airline crew on the plane reached their maximum work hours in the air, so another crew had to be flown in. The alternative of chartering a bus didn't work out. And letting the passengers into the Rochester airport was not possible because they would have to go through security screening again, and the screeners had gone home for the day.

Gods, this is funny:

David Brooks, just in case you don't know, is a conservative commentator (but not completely insane).

So, which of the fine, upstanding Republican senators do you think was the one?

Jim Downey

Via John Cole.

Well, at least the court ruled against him:

Man Burned at Burning Man Assumed Risk of Being Burned by Burning Man, Says Court

On June 30, the California Court of Appeal held that a man who was burned by the huge bonfire that ends the Burning Man festival each year could not sue the festival organizers. Anthony Beninati admitted he had intentionally walked into the fire, and that he had previously known fire was hot. But he argued, basically, that the organizers were negligent because they should not have let him approach the fire so closely.

He did not win.

Seemed like the perfect item to post for the Fourth of July holiday weekend, as a cautionary tale. Here's a bit more Schadenfreude:

You know, this *almost* seems like a parody, but I recognize enough of the Westboro crowd in it to know that it is serious:

From the info posted:

The following video shows the reactions of ghosts and demons to Holy water made from SSRF incense sticks. The Holy water imparts positive energy and destroys negative black energy of ghosts (demons, negative energies) possessing a person. The healers sprinkling Holy water as a spiritual healing remedy are above the 60% spiritual level and this further contributes to the potency of the Holy water.

And now, the exciting video!

Now, seriously, I'd be more impressed if they spontaneously burst into flame from the holy water. I think I saw that in a movie once.

Jim Downey

Got this in my inbox this morning (happily, my spam filter caught it):

What is Mind Mapping

Mind Mapping is a great technique that will enhance your thinking skills and memory. A Mind Map uses key words, colours and images to stimulate your brain.

Your brain has the ability to learn and remember large amounts of information. It works by linking ideas together. When you think, your brain starts off from one idea and radiates outwards to other ideas. This radiant thinking ability is natural and automatic.

For your brain to function effectively, it must express itself in a radiant form that reflects its thought processes. In other words, to use your brain effectively, you have to think radiantly. A Mind Map, when drawn, radiates from a central idea and can be considered an expression of the radiant thinking brain.
This workshop will show you how to use Mind Mapping techniques to boost your productivity. It will give you the knowledge and techniques to be a more effective manager.

Benefits

By the end of the workshop, you will be able to:

* Use your brain effectively
* Increase your concentration
* Achieve a higher level of creativity

Well, I suppose I should have, since I was 'raised Catholic' and grew up listening to (and loving) The Beatles:

John Lennon's Pact with Satan

A book by Joseph Niezgoda - The Lennon Prophecy, A New Examination of the Death Clues of the Beatles - makes a good case for John Lennon making a pact with Satan in exchange for fame and fortune. The author is a first generation Beatle fan, has read every book out on the rock group, and admits conflict with his love of the music and the evil that he perceives surrounds it. His book - a 15-year project - was an effort, he said, to try to define or make sense of that evil.

In fact, this is the book I was always planning to write about the Beatles. Since I threw out my Beatles albums along with the rest of my rock music many years ago, I've been gathering facts about the clues and signs of a Satanic link, evidence of camaraderie with occultists and their dabbling with the occult. Believe me, plenty exists.

Man, it just gets better from there.

Jim Downey

Hire someone to help you plant carrots?

Lottery winner plans to grow better carrots

LONDON (Reuters) – A 74-year-old amateur gardener who scooped a 25 million pound lottery prize said Tuesday he would spend part of his winnings hiring an expert to learn how to grow better carrots.

Brian Caswell said he had always struggled with the vegetable on the prize-winning allotment he maintains with his Joan, 71, in Halliwell, near Bolton.

"I've been trying to grow carrots ever since I've been on that allotment and I've never had any success," he told reporters at a televised briefing.

"What I'm going to do now is bring a professional in and say, 'Right, sort that out.'"

Not my cuppa, as the Brits might say, but more power to ya, buddy. I hope you grow the best carrots on the planet.

Now, do you need someone to show you how to enjoy a pint or something? I'm available for consultation . . .

Jim Downey

Damn, this is funny:

First 'anti-stab' knife to go on sale in Britain

The first “anti-stab” knife is to go on sale in Britain, designed to work as normal in the kitchen but to be ineffective as a weapon.

The knife has a rounded edge instead of a point and will snag on clothing and skin to make it more difficult to stab someone.

It was invented by industrial designer John Cornock, who was inspired by a documentary in which doctors advocated banning traditional knives.

No, seriously, this is not a joke. Here's a bit from the company's website:

I'm not entirely sure what to make of this. I heard about it yesterday, but have been pondering.

Blogger's baby was a hoax

The unmarried mother's story about giving birth to a child diagnosed as terminally ill in the womb hit a major nerve on the Internet.

Every night for the last two months, thousands of abortion opponents across the nation logged on to a blog run by the suburban Chicago woman who identified herself only as "B" or "April's Mom."

People said they prayed that God would save her pregnancy. They e-mailed her photos of their children dressed in pink, bought campaign T-shirts, shared tales of personal heartache and redemption, and sent letters and gifts to an Oak Lawn P.O. box in support.

As more and more people were drawn to her compelling tale, eager advertisers were lining up. And established parenting Web sites that oppose abortion were promoting her blog -- which included biblical quotes, anti-abortion messages and a soundtrack of inspirational Christian pop songs.

Except, of course as the headline indicates, it was all a hoax.

Via Phil Plait, a glimpse into how far woo can go wrong:

Orbiter crashing into the moon

There is a Japanese lunar orbiter named Kaguya that is scheduled to crash into the moon today at about 2:30 pm ET. Scientists hope to learn something about the moon’s composition by observing the debris that is kicked up.

In many traditions, including astrology, the moon represents the feminine. It is the yin, the intuitive, the emotions. Women are connected to the moon by their menstrual cycles while they are fertile, and all beings, including the earth herself, are affected by the pull of the tides.

* * *

Did these scientists talk to the moon? Tell her what they were doing? Ask her permission? Show her respect?

Wow.

Just . . . wow.